


To all the boys I've loved before (lams au)

by non_dead_gay_daughter



Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - To All the Boys I've Loved Before Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 13:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 16,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17581676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/non_dead_gay_daughter/pseuds/non_dead_gay_daughter
Summary: What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them…all at once?Sixteen-year-old John Laurens keeps his love letters in a hatbox his mother gave him.They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for him; these are ones he’s written. One for every boy he’s ever loved—five in all. When he writes, he pours out his heart and soul and says all the things he would never say in real life, because his letters are for his eyes only. Until the day his secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, John Laurens’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.- Rights to Jenny Han, I just adapted.





	1. One

_FRANCIS IS MARTHA’S BOYFRIEND_ , _BUT_ I guess you could say my whole family is a little in love with him. It’s hard to say who most of all. Before he was Martha’s boyfriend, he was just Francis. He was always there. I say always, but I guess that’s not true. He moved next door five years ago but it feels like always.

My dad loves Francis because he’s a boy that actually understand him. I mean it: My dad is an ob-gyn, and he also happens to be the father of two daughters and two boys, and one of them is gay (but it's not like he knows it, but what can I do if I'm just part of the steriotype that doesn't like sports) and the other is too young, so it’s like girls, girls, girls all day. He also likes Francis because Francis likes comics and he’ll go fishing with him. My dad tried to take us fishing once, and I cried when my shoes got mud on them, and Martha cried when her book got wet, and Mary cried because Mary was still practically a baby.

Mary loves Francis because he’ll play cards with her and not get bored. Or at least pretend to not get bored. They make deals with each other—if I win this next hand, you have to make me a toasted crunchy-peanut-butter-sandwich, no crusts. That’s Mary. Inevitably there won’t be crunchy peanut butter and Francis will say too bad, pick something else. But then Mary will wear him down and he’ll run out and buy some, because that’s Francis.

If I had to say why Martha loves him, I think maybe I would say it’s because we all do.

We are in the living room, Mary is pasting pictures of dogs to a giant piece of cardboard. There’s paper and scraps all around her. Humming to herself, she says, “When Daddy asks me what I want for Christmas, I am just going to say, ‘Pick any one of these breeds and we’ll be good.’ ”

Martha and Francis are on the couch; I’m lying on the floor, watching TV. Fran popped a big bowl of popcorn, and I devote myself to it, handfuls and handfuls of it.

A commercial comes on for perfume: a girl is running around the streets of Paris in an orchid-colored halter dress that is thin as tissue paper. What I wouldn’t give to be that girl in that tissue-paper dress running around Paris in springtime! I sit up so suddenly I choke on a kernel of popcorn. Between coughs I say, “Martha, let’s meet in Paris for my spring break!” I’m already picturing myself twirling with a pistachio macarron in one hand and a raspberry one in the other.

Martha’s eyes light up. “Do you think Daddy will let you?”

“Sure, it’s culture, and Laf is from France. He’ll have to let me.” But it’s true that I’ve never flown by myself before. And also I’ve never even left the country before. Would Martha meet me at the airport, or would I have to find my own way to the hostel?

Francis must see the sudden worry on my face because he says, “Don’t worry. Your dad will definitely let you go if I’m with you.” I brighten.

“Yeah! We can stay at hostels and just eat pastries and cheese for all our meals.”

“We can call your friend so he can show us around and visit Jim Morrison’s grave!” Francis throws in.

“We can go to a parfumerie and get our personal scents done!” I cheer, and Francis snorts. “Um, I’m pretty sure ‘getting our scents done’ at a parfumerie would cost the same as a week’s stay at the hostel,” he says.

He nudges Martha. “Your brother suffers from delusions of grandeur.” “He is the fanciest of the three of us,” Martha agrees.

“What about me?” Mary whimpers.

“You?” I scoff. “You’re the least fancy Ball sibling. I have to beg you to wash your feet at night, much less take a shower.”

Mary’s face gets pinched and red. “I wasn’t talking about that, you dodo bird. I was talking about Paris.”

Airily, I wave her off. “You’re too little to stay at a hostel.”

She crawls over to Martha and climbs in her lap, even though she’s nine and nine is too big to sit in people’s laps. “Martha, you’ll let me go, won’t you?”

“Maybe it could be a family vacation,” Martha says, kissing her cheek. “You and John, Henry and Daddy could all come.” I frown. That’s not at all the Paris trip I was imagining.

Over Mary’s head Francis mouths to me, We’ll talk later, and I give him a discreet thumbs-up.

•••

It’s later that night; Francis is long gone. Mary and our dad are asleep. We are in the kitchen. Martha is at the table on her computer; I am sitting next to her, rolling cookie dough into balls and dropping them in cinnamon and sugar. Snickerdoodles to get back in Mary’s good graces. Earlier, when I went in to say good night, Mary rolled over and wouldn’t speak to me because she’s still convinced I’m going to try to cut her out of the Paris trip. My plan is to put the snickerdoodles on a plate right next to her pillow so she wakes up to the smell of fresh-baked cookies.

Martha's being extra quiet, and then, out of nowhere, she looks up from her computer and says, “I broke up with Francis tonight. After dinner.”

My cookie-dough ball falls out of my fingers and into the sugar bowl. “I mean, it was time,” she says. Her eyes aren’t red-rimmed; she hasn’t been crying, I don’t think. Her voice is calm and even. Anyone looking at her would think she was fine. Because Martha is always fine, even when she’s not.

“I don’t see why you had to break up,” I say. “Just ’cause you’re going to college doesn’t mean you have to break up.”

“John, I’m going to Scotland, not UVA. Saint Andrews is nearly four thousand miles away.” She pushes up her glasses. “What would be the point?” I can’t even believe she would say that.

“The point is, it’s Francis. Francis who loves you more than any boy has ever loved a girl!” Martha rolls her eyes at this. She thinks I’m being dramatic, but I’m not. It’s true— that’s how much Francis loves Martha. He would never so much as look at another girl.

Suddenly she says, “Do you know what Mommy told me once?”

“What?” For a moment I forget all about Francis. Because no matter what I am doing inlife, if Martha and I are in the middle of an argument, if I am about to get hit by a car, I will always stop and listen to a story about Mommy. Any detail, any remembrance that Martha has, I want to have it too. I’m better off than Mary, though. Mary doesn’t have one memory of Mommy that we haven’t given her. We’ve told her so many stories so many times that they’re hers now. “Remember that time... ,” she’ll say. And then she’ll tell the story like she was there and not just a little baby. “She told me to try not to go to college with a boyfriend. She said she didn’t want me to be the girl crying on the phone with her boyfriend and saying no to things instead of yes.”

Scotland is Martha’s yes, I guess. Absently, I scoop up a mound of cookie dough and pop it in my mouth.

“You shouldn’t eat raw cookie dough,” Martha says. I ignore her.

“Francis would never hold you back from anything. He’s not like that. Remember how when you decided to run for student-body president, he was your campaign manager? He’s your biggest fan!”

At this, the corners of Martha’s mouth turn down, and I get up and fling my arms around her neck. She leans her head back and smiles up at me. “I’m okay,” she says, but she isn’t, I know she isn’t.

“It’s not too late, you know. You can go over there right now and tell him you changed your mind.”

Martha shakes her head. “It’s done, Jackie.” I release her and she closes her laptop. “When will the first batch be ready? I’m hungry.”

I look at the magnetic egg timer on the fridge. “Four more minutes.” I sit back down and say, “I don’t care what you say, Marty. You guys aren’t done. You love him too much.”

She shakes her head. “John Laurens,” she begins, in her patient Martha voice, like I am a child and she is a wise old woman of forty-two.

I wave a spoonful of cookie dough under Martha’s nose, and she hesitates and then opens her mouth. I feed it to her like a baby. “Wait and see, you and Francis will be back together in a day, maybe two.”

But even as I’m saying it, I know it’s not true. Martha’s not the kind of girl to break up and get back together on a whim; once she’s decided something, that’s it. There’s no waffling, no regrets. It’s like she said: when she’s done, she’s just done. I wish (and this is a thought I’ve had many, many times, too many times to count) I was more like Martha. Because sometimes it feels like I’ll never be done.

Later, after I’ve washed the dishes and plated the cookies and set them on Mary’s pillow, I go to my room. I don’t turn the light on. I go to my window. Francis’s light is still on.


	2. Two

_THE NEXT MORNING, MARTHA IS_ making coffee and I am pouring cereal in bowls, and I say the thing I’ve been thinking all morning. “Just so you know, Daddy and Mary are going to be really upset.”

When Mary and I were brushing our teeth just now, I was tempted to go ahead and spill the beans, but Mary was still mad at me from yesterday, so I kept quiet. She didn’t even acknowledge my cookies, though I know she ate them because all that was left on the plate were crumbs.

Martha lets out a heavy sigh. “So I’m supposed to stay with Francis because of you and Daddy and Mary?”

“No, I’m just telling you.”

“It’s not like he would come over here that much once I was gone, anyway.” I frown.

This didn’t occur to me, that Francis would stop coming over because Martha was  
gone. He was coming over long before they were ever a couple, so I don’t see why he should stop. “He might,” I say. “He really loves Mary.”

She pushes the start button on the coffee machine. I’m watching her super carefully  
because Martha’s always been the one to make the coffee and I never have, and now that she’s leaving (only six more days), I’d better know how. With her back to me she says, “Maybe I won’t even mention it to them.”

“Um, I think they’ll figure it out when he’s not at the airport, Gogo.” Gogo is one of my nicknames for Martha. As in go-go boots. “How many cups of water did you put in there? And how many spoons of coffee beans?”

“I’ll write it all down for you,” Martha assures me. “In the notebook.”

We keep a house notebook by the fridge. Marty's idea, of course. It has all the  
important numbers and Daddy’s schedule and Mary’s carpool. “Make sure you put in the number for the new dry cleaners,” I say.

“Already done.” Martha slices a banana for her cereal: each slice is perfectly thin.

“And also, Francis wouldn’t have come to the airport with us anyway. You know how I feel about sad good-byes.” Martha makes a face, like Ugh, emotions.

I do know.

•••

When Martha decided to go to college in Scotland, it felt like a betrayal. Even though I knew it was coming, because of course she was going to go to college somewhere far away. And of course she was going to go to college in Scotland and study anthropology, because she is Martha, the girl with the maps and the travel books and the plans. Of course she would leave us one day. I’m still mad at her, just a little. Just a teeny-tiny bit

Obviously I know it’s not her fault. But she’s going so far away, and we always said we’d be the Ball siblings forever.

Martha first, me after, my sister Mary after and Henry last. On her birth certificate the nine years old is Mary Eleanor; but we don't use that name very often. Occasionally we call her Kitten, because that’s what I called her when she was born: she looked like a scrawny, hairless kitten.

We are the four Ball Siblings. There used to be one more girl in the family. My mom, Eleanor Ball. Elle to my dad, Mommy to us, Eleanor to everyone else. Ball is, was, my mom’s last name. Our last name is Laurens. But the reason we are the Ball siblings and  
not the Laurens is my mom used to say that she was a Ball for life, and Martha said then we should be too. We all have Ball for our middle name, and we look more Ball than Laurens anyway. At least Martha and I do; Mary looks most like Daddy: her hair is light brown like his and her eyes are blue. People say I look the most like Mommy, because of the freckles, but I think Martha does, with her high cheekbones and light green eyes. It’s been almost six years now, and sometimes it feels like just yesterday she was here, and sometimes it feels like she never was, only in dreams.

She’d mopped the floors that morning; they were shiny and everything smelled like lemons and clean house. The phone was ringing in the kitchen, she came running in to answer it, and she slipped. She hit her head on the floor, and she was unconscious, but then she woke up and she was fine. That was her lucid interval. That’s what they call it. A little while later she said she had a headache, she went to lie down on the couch, and then she didn’t wake up.

Martha was the one who found her. She was twelve. She took care of everything: she called 911; she called Daddy; she told me to watch over Mary, who was only three and Henry, that was almost one. I turned on the TV for them in the playroom and I sat there. That’s all I did. I don’t know what I would have done if Martha hadn’t been there. Even though Martha is only two years older than me, I look up to her more than anybody.

When other adults find out that my dad is a single father of four children, they shake their heads in admiration, like How does he do it? How does he ever manage that all by himself? The answer is Martha.

She’s been an organizer from the start, everything labeled and scheduled and arranged in neat, even rows.

Martha is a good girl, and I guess Mary and I have followed her lead. I’ve never cheated or gotten drunk or smoked a cigarette or even had a boyfriend. We tease Daddy and say how lucky he is that we’re all so good, but the truth is, we’re the lucky ones. He’s a really good dad. And he tries hard. He doesn’t always understand us, but he tries, and that’s the important thing. We, the Ball siblings have an unspoken pact: to make life as easy as possible for Daddy. But then again, maybe it’s not so unspoken, because how many times have I heard Martha say, “Shh, be quiet, Daddy’s taking a nap before he has to go back to the hospital,” or “Don’t bother Daddy with that; do it yourself”?

I’ve asked Martha what she thinks it would have been like if Mommy hadn’t died. Like would we spend more time with her side of the family and not just on Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day? Or—  
Martha doesn’t see the point in wondering. This is our life; there’s no use in asking what if. No one could ever give you the answers. I try, I really do, but it’s hard for me to accept this way of thinking. I’m always wondering about the what-ifs, about the road not taken.

Daddy come downstairs carrying Henry and Mary at his side. Martha pours Daddy a cup of coffee, black, and I pour milk in Mary’s cereal bowl. I push it in front of her, and she turns her head away from me and gets a yogurt out of the fridge. She takes it into the living room to eat in front of the TV. So she’s still mad.

“I’m going to go to Costco later today, so you kids make a list for whatever you need,” Daddy asks, taking a big sip of coffee. “I think I’ll pick up some New York strips for dinner. We can grill out. Should I get one for Francis, too?”

My head whips in Martha’s direction. She opens her mouth and closes it. Then she  
says, “No, just get enough for the four of us, Daddy.”

I give her a reproving look, and she ignores me. I’ve never known Martha to chicken out before, but I suppose in matters of the heart, there’s no predicting how a person will or won’t behave.


	3. Three

_SO NOW IT’S THE LAST_ days of summer and our last days with Martha.

Maybe it’s not altogether such a bad thing that she broke up with Francis; this way we have more time with just us. I’m sure she must have thought of that. I’m sure it was part of the plan.

We’re driving out of our neighborhood when we see Francis run past. He joined track last year, so now he’s always running. Mary yells his name, but the windows are up, and it’s no use anyway—he pretends not to hear. “Turn around,” Mary urges Marty. “Maybe he wants to come with us.”

“This is a Ball-siblings-only day,” I tell her. We spend the rest of the morning at Target, picking up last minute things like Honey Nut Chex mix for the flight and deodorant and hair ties.

We let Mary push the cart so she can do that thing where she gets a running start and then rides the cart like she’s pushing a chariot. Martha only lets her do it a couple of times before she makes her stop, though, so as not to annoy other customers.

Next we go back home and make chicken salad with green grapes for lunch and then it’s nearly time for Mary’s swim meet. We pack a picnic dinner of ham-and-cheese sandwiches and fruit salad and bring Martha’s laptop to watch movies on, because swim meets can go long into the night. We make a sign, too, that says Go Mary Go! I draw a dog on it.

Daddy ends up missing the swim meet because he is delivering a baby, and as far as excuses go, it’s a pretty good one. (It was a girl, and they named her Patricia Rose after her two grandmothers. Daddy always finds out the first and middle name for me. It’s the first thing I ask when he gets home from a delivery).

Mary’s so excited about winning two first-place ribbons and one second place that she forgets to ask where Francis is until we’re in the car driving back home.

She’s in the backseat and she’s got her towel wrapped around her head like a turban and her ribbons dangling from her ears like earrings. She leans forward and says, “Hey! Why didn’t Francis come to my meet?”

I can see Martha hesitate, so I answer before she can. Maybe the only thing I’m better at than Martha is lying. “He had to work at the bookstore tonight. He really wanted to make it, though.” Martha reaches across the console and gives my hand a grateful squeeze.

Sticking out her lower lip, Mary says, “That was the last regular meet! He promised he’d come watch me swim.”

“It was a last-minute thing,” I say. “He couldn’t get out of working the shift because one of his coworkers had an emergency.” Mary nods begrudgingly. Little as she is, she understands emergency shifts.

“Let’s get frozen custards,” Martha says suddenly. Mary lights up, and Fran and his imaginary emergency shift is forgotten.

“Yeah! I want a waffle cone! Can I get a waffle cone with two scoops? I want mint chip and peanut brittle. No, rainbow sherbet and double fudge. No, wait—”

I twist around in my seat. “You can’t finish two scoops and a waffle cone,” I tell her.“ Maybe you could finish two scoops in a cup, but not in a cone.”

“Yes, I can. Tonight I can. I’m starving.”

“Fine, but you better finish the whole thing.” I shake my finger at her and say it like a threat, which makes her roll her eyes and giggle. As for me, I’ll get what I always get— the cherry chocolate-chunk custard in a sugar cone.

Martha pulls into the drive-thru, and as we wait our turn, I say, “I bet they don’t have frozen custard in Scotland.”

“Probably not,” she says.

“You won’t have another one of these until Thanksgiving,” I say.

Marty looks straight ahead. “Christmas,” she says, correcting me.

“Thanksgiving’s too short to fly all that way, remember?”

“Thanksgiving’s gonna suck.” Mary pouts. I’m silent.

We’ve never had a Thanksgiving without Martha. She always does the turkey and the broccoli casserole and the creamed onions. I do the pies (pumpkin and pecan) and the mashed potatoes that Henry loves. Mary is the taste tester and the table setter with Henry. I don’t know how to roast a turkey. And both of our grandmothers will be there, and Nana, Daddy’s mother, likes Martha best of all of us. She says Mary drains her and I’m too dreamy-eyed. All of a sudden I feel panicky and it’s hard to breathe and I couldn’t care less about cherry chocolate-chunk custard. I can’t picture Thanksgiving without Martha. I can’t even picture next Monday without her. I know most siblings don’t get along, but I’m closer to Marty than I am to anybody in the world. How can we be the Ball siblings without Martha?


	4. Four

_MY OLDEST FRIEND MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE_ , he hooks up with boys she doesn’t know hardly at all, and he’s been suspended twice.

One time he had to go before the court for truancy. I never knew what truancy was before I met Laf. FYI, it’s when you skip so much school you’re in trouble with the law.

I’m pretty sure that if Lafayette and I met each other now, we wouldn’t be friends. We’re as different as different can be. But it wasn’t always this way. In sixth grade Laf liked stationery and sleepovers and staying up all night watching John Hughes movies, just like me. But by eighth grade he was sneaking out after my dad fell asleep to meet boys he met at the mall. They’d drop him back off before it got light outside. I’d stay up until he came back, terrified he wouldn’t make it home before my dad woke up.

He always made it back in time though.

Laf isn’t the kind of friend you call every night or have lunch with every day. He is like a street cat, he comes and goes as he pleases. He can’t be tied down to a place or a person. Sometimes I won’t see him for days and then in the middle of the night there will be a knock at my bedroom window and it’ll be Laf, crouched in the magnolia tree. I keep my window unlocked for him in case.

Laf and Marty can’t stand each other. Lafayette thinks Martha is uptight, and Martha thinks Lafayette is bipolar. She thinks Laf uses me; Laf thinks Martha controls me. I think maybe they’re both a little bit right. But the important thing, the real thing, is Laf and I understand each other, which I think counts for a lot more than people realize.

•••

Laf calls me on the way over to our house; he says his (foster) mom’s being a beotch and he’s coming over for a couple hours and do we have any food? 

He and I are sharing a bowl of leftover gnocchi in the living room when Martha comes home from dropping Mary off at her swim team’s end-of-season barbecue.

“Oh, hey,” she says. Then she spots Laf’s glass of Diet Coke on the coffee table, sans coaster. “Can you please use a coaster?”

As soon as Martha’s up the stairs, Laf says, “Gawd! Why is your sister such a beotch?”

I slide a coaster under his glass. “You think everyone’s a beotch today.”

“That, mon amour, is because everyone is.” Laf rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. Loudly, she says,

“She needs to pull that, how do you say?... Stick out of her ass.”

From her room Martha yells, “I heard that!”

“I meant for you to!” Laf yells back, scraping up the last piece of gnocchi for himself.

I sigh. “She’s leaving so soon.”

Snickering, Laf says, “So is Francis, like, going to light a candle for her every night until she comes back home?”

I hesitate. While I’m not sure if it’s still supposed to be a secret, I am sure that Martha wouldn’t want him knowing any of her personal business. All I say is, “I’m not sure.”

“Wait a minute. Did she dump him?” Laf demands.

Reluctantly I nod. “Don’t say anything to her, though,” I warn. “She’s still really sad about it.”

“Martha? Sad?” Laf picks at his nails.

“Martha doesn’t have normal human emotions like the rest of us.”

“You just don’t know her,” I say. “Besides, we can’t all be like you.” He grins a toothy grin. He has sharp incisors, which make him look always a little bit hungry. “True.”

Lafayette is pure emotion. He screams at the drop of a hat. He says sometimes you have to scream out emotions; if you don’t, they’ll fester. The other day he screamed at a lady at the grocery store for accidentally stepping on his toes. I don’t think he’s in any danger of his emotions festering. He also said it's a french thing. I'm not sure if that's true.

“I just can’t believe that in a few days she’ll be gone,” I say, feeling sniffly all of a sudden.

“She’s not dying, Johnny. There’s nothing to get all boo-hoo about.” Laf pulls at a loose string on his red shorts. They’re so short that when he’s sitting, you can see his underwear. Which are red to match his shorts. “In fact, I think this is good for you. It’s about time you did your own thing and stopped just listening to whatever Queen Martha says. This is your junior year, bitch. This is when it’s supposed to get good. French some guys, live a little, you know?”

“I live plenty,” I say.

“Yeah, at the nursing home.” Laf snickers and I glare at him.

Martha started volunteering at the Belleview Retirement Community when she got her driver’s license; it was her job to help host cocktail hour for the residents. I’d help sometimes. We’d set out peanuts and pour drinks and sometimes Martha would play the piano, but usually Stormy hogged that. Stormy is the Belleview diva. She rules the roost. I like listening to her stories. And Miss Mary, she might not be so good at conversation due to her dementia, but she taught me how to knit.

They have a new volunteer there now, but I know that at Belleview it really is the more the merrier, because most of the residents get so few visitors. I should go back soon; I miss going there. And I for sure don’t appreciate Laf making fun of it.

“Those people at Belleview have lived more life than everyone we know combined,” I tell him.“There’s this one lady, Stormy, she was a USO girl! She used to get a hundred letters a day from soldiers who were in love with her. And there was this one veteran who lost his leg—he sent her a diamond ring!”

Laf looks interested all of a sudden. “Did she keep it?”

“She did,” I admit. I think it was wrong of her to keep the ring since she had no intention of marrying him, but she showed it to me, and it was beautiful. It was a pink diamond, very rare. I bet it’s worth so much money now.

“I guess Stormy sounds kind of like a badass,” Laf says begrudgingly.

“Maybe you could come with me to Belleview sometime,” I suggest. “We could go to their cocktail hour. Mrs. Perelli loves to dance with new boys. She’ll teach you how to fox-trot.”

Laf makes a horrible face like I suggested we go hang out at the town dump. “No, thanks. How about I take you dancing?” He nudges his chin toward upstairs. “Now that your sister’s leaving, we can have some real fun. You know I always have fun.”

It’s true, Laf does always have fun. Sometimes a little too much fun, but fun nonetheless.


	5. Five

_THE NIGHT BEFORE MARTHA LEAVES_ , all three of us are in her room helping pack up the last little things.

Mary is organizing Marty’s bath stuff, packing it nice and neat in the clear shower caddy.

Martha is trying to decide which coat to bring. “Should I bring my peacoat and my puffy coat or just my peacoat?” she asks me.

“Just the peacoat,” I say. “You can dress that up or down.” I’m lying on her bed directing the packing process. “Mary, make sure the lotion cap is on tight.”

“It’s brand-new—course it’s on tight!” Mary growls, but she double-checks.

“It gets cold in Scotland sooner than it does here,” Martha said, folding the coat and setting it on top of her suitcase. “I think I’ll just bring both.”

“I don’t know why you asked if you already knew what you were going to do,” I say. “Also, I thought you said you were coming home for Christmas. You’re still coming home for Christmas, right?”

“Yes, if you’ll stop being a brat,” Martha says. Honestly, Martha isn’t even packing that much. She doesn’t need a lot. If it was me, I’d have packed up my whole room, but not Marty. Her room looks the same, almost.

Martha sits down next to me, and Mary climbs up and sits at the foot of the bed.

“Everything’s changing,” I say, sighing. 

Martha makes a face and puts her arm around me.“Nothing’s changing, not really. We’re the Ball siblings forever, remember?”

Our father stands in the doorway. He knocks, even though the door is open and we can clearly see it is him. “I’m going to start packing up the car now,” he announces.

We watch from the bed as he lugs one of the suitcases downstairs, and then he comes up for the other one.

Drily he says, “Oh no, don’t get up. Don’t trouble yourselves.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t,” we sing out. For the past week our father has been in spring-cleaning mode, even though it isn’t spring. He’s getting rid of everything—the bread machine we never used, CDs, old blankets, our mother’s old typewriter. It’s all going to Goodwill. A psychiatrist or someone could probably connect it to Marty’s leaving for college, but I can’t explain the exact significance of it. Whatever it is, it’s annoying. I had to shoot him away from my glass-unicorn collection twice.

I lay down my head in Martha’s lap. “So you really are coming home for Christmas, right?” 

“Right.”

“I wish I could come with you.” Mary pouts. “You’re nicer than John.” I give her a pinch. “See?” she crows.

“Jackie will be nice,” Martha says, “as long as you behave. And you both have to take care of Daddy. Make sure he doesn’t work too many Saturdays. Make sure he takes the car in for inspection next month. And make sure you buy coffee filters—you’re always forgetting to buy coffee filters.”

“Yes, drill sergeant,” Mary and I chorus. I search Martha’s face for sadness or fear or worry, for some sign that she is scared to go so far away, that she will miss us as much as we will miss her. I don’t see it, though. The three of us sleep in Martha’s room that night.

Mary falls asleep first, as always. I lie in the dark beside her with my eyes open. I can’t sleep. The thought that tomorrow night Martha won’t be in this room—it makes me so sad I can hardly bear it. I hate change more than almost anything. In the dark next to me Martha asks, “Jack... do you think you’ve ever been in love before? Real love?”

She catches me off guard; I don’t have an answer ready for her. I’m trying to think of one, but she’s already talking again. Wistfully, she says, “I wish I’d been in love more than once. I think you should fall in love at least twice in high school.”

Then she lets out a little sigh and falls asleep. Marty falls asleep like that—one dreamy sigh and she’s off to never-never land, just like that.

•••

I wake up in the middle of the night and Martha’s not there. Mary’s curled up on her side next to me, but no Martha.

It’s pitch dark; only the moonlight filters through the curtains. I crawl out of bed and move to the window. My breath catches.

There they are: Francis and Martha standing in the driveway. Martha’s face is turned away from him, toward the moon. Francis is crying. They aren’t touching. There’s enough space between them for me to know that Martha hasn’t changed her mind.

I drop the curtain and find my way back to the bed, where Mary has rolled farther into the center. I push her back a few inches so there will be room for Martha. I wish I hadn’t seen that. It was too personal. Too real. It was supposed to be just for them. If there was a way for me to unsee it, I would.

I turn on my side and close my eyes. What must it be like, to have a boy like you so much he cries for you? And not just any boy. Francis. Our Francis. To answer her question: yes, I think I have been in real love. Just once, though. With Francis. _Our Francis_.


	6. Six

_THIS IS HOW MARTHA AND_ Francis got together. In a way I heard about it from Francis first.

It was two years ago. We were sitting in the library during our free. I was doing math homework; Francis was helping because he’s good at math. We had our heads bent over my page, so close I could smell the soap he’d used that morning. Irish Spring.

And then he said, “I need your advice on something. I like someone.” For a split second I thought it was me. I thought he was going to say me. I hoped. It was the start of the school year.

We’d hung out nearly every day that August, sometimes with Marty but mostly just by ourselves, because Martha had her internship at the Montpelier plantation three days a week. We swam a lot. I had a great tan from all the swimming. So for that split second I thought he was going to say my name.

But then I saw the way he blushed, the way he looked off into space, and I knew it wasn’t for me.

Mentally, I ran through the list of people it could be. It was a short list. Francis didn’t hangout with a ton of people; he had his best friend Jersey Mike, who had moved from NewJersey in middle school, and his other best friend, Ben, and that was it. It could have been Ashley, a junior on the volleyball team. He’d once pointed her out as the cutest of all the junior girls. In Francis’s defense, I’d made him do it: I asked him who were the prettiest in each grade. For prettiest freshman, my grade, he said Eliza.

Not that I was surprised, but it still gave me a little pinch in my heart.

It could have been Jodie, the college girl from the bookstore. Francks often talked about how smart Jodie was, how she was so cultured because she’d studied abroad in India and was now Buddhist. Ha! I still don't believe he's into boys, but wait; I was the one who’d taught Francis how to eat with chopsticks.

He’d had kimchi for the first time at my house. I was about to ask him who when the librarian came over to shush us, and then we went back to doing work and Fran didn’t bring it up again and I didn’t ask.

Honestly, I didn’t want to know. It wasn’t me, and that was all I cared about. I didn’t think for one second that the girl he liked was Martha.

Not that I didn’t see her as a girl who could be liked. She’d been asked out before, by a certain type of guy. Smart guys who would partner up with her in chemistry and run against her for student government.

In retrospect, it wasn’t so surprising that Francis would like Martha, since he’s that kind of guy too. If someone were to ask me what Francis looks like, I would say he’s just ordinary. He looks like the kind of guy you’d expect would be good at computers, the kind of guy who calls comic books graphic novels. Blonde hair. Not a special blonde, just regular blonde. Green eyes that go muddy in the center. He’s on the skinny side, but he’s strong. I know because I sprained my ankle once by the old baseball field and he piggybacked me all the way home. He has freckles, like me, which make us look younger than our age. And a dimple on his left check. I’ve always liked that dimple.

He has such a serious face otherwise. What was surprising, what was shocking, was that Martha would like him back. Not because of who Francis was, but because of who Martha was. I’d never heard her talk about liking a boy before, not even once.

I was the flighty one, the flibbertigibbet, as my white grandma would say. Not Martha. Martha was above all that. She existed on some higher plane where those things—boys, makeup, clothes—didn’t really matter. The way it happened was sudden.

Martha came home from school late that day in October; her cheeks were pink from the cold mountainy air and she had her hair in a braid and a scarf around her neck. She’d been working on a project at school, it was dinnertime, and I’d cooked chicken parmesan with thin spaghetti in watery tomato sauce.

She came into the kitchen and announced, “I have something to tell you.” Her eyes were very bright; I remember she was unspooling the scarf from around her neck. Mary was doing her homework at the kitchen table, Daddy was on his way home, and I was stirring the watery sauce.

“What?” Mary and I asked.

“Francis likes me.” Martha gave a pleased kind of shrug; her shoulders nearly went up to her ears.

I went very still. Then I dropped my wooden spoon into the sauce. “Francis Francis? Our Francis?” I couldn’t even look at her. I was afraid that she would see.

“Yes. He waited for me after school today so he could tell me. He said—” Martha grinned ruefully. “He said I’m his dream girl. Can you believe that?”

“Wow,” I said, and I tried to communicate happiness in that word, but I don’t know if it came out that way. All I was feeling was despair. And envy. Envy so thick and so black I felt like I was choking on it. So I tried again, this time with a smile. “Wow, Marty.”

“Wow,” Mary echoed. “So are you boyfriend and girlfriend now?” I held my breath, waiting for her to answer.

Martha took a pinch of parmesan between her fingers and dropped it in her mouth. “Yeah, I think so.” And then she smiled, and her eyes went all soft and liquid.

I understood then that she liked him too. So much.

That night I wrote my letter to Francis.

 _Dear Francis._..

I cried a lot. Just like that, it was over. It was over before I even had a chance. The important thing wasn’t that Francis had chosen Martha. It was that Martha had chosen him. So that was that. I cried my eyes out; I wrote my letter; I put the whole thing to rest. I haven’t thought of him that way since. He and Martha are meant to be. They’re MFEO. Made for each other.

•••

I’m still awake when Martha comes back to bed, but I quickly shut my eyes and pretend to be asleep. Mary’s cuddled up next to me. I hear a snuffly sound and I peek out of one eye to look at Martha.

Her back is to us; her shoulders are shaking. She’s crying.

Martha _never_ cries.

Now that I’ve seen Martha cry over him, I believe it more than ever—they’re not over.


	7. Seven

_THE NEXT DAY, WE DRIVE_ Martha to the airport.

Outside, we load up her suitcases on a luggage carrier—Mary tries to get on top and dance, but our father pulls her down right away.

Martha insists on going in by herself, just like she said she would. “Martha, at least let me get your bags checked,” Daddy says, trying to maneuver the luggage carrier around her. “I want to see you go through security.”

“I’ll be fine,” she repeats. “I’ve flown by myself before. I know how to check a bag.” She stretches up on her toes and puts her arms around our dad’s shoulders. “I’ll call as soon as I get there, I promise.”

“Call every day,” I whisper. The lump in my throat is getting bigger, and a few tears leak out of my eyes. I’d hoped I wouldn’t cry, because I knew Martha wouldn’t, and it’s lonely to cry alone, but I can’t help it.

“Don’t you dare forget us,” Mary warns and Henry started crying softly, almost like he understood what was going on. That makes Martha smile. “I could never.” She hugs us each one more time. She saves me for last, the way I knew she would. “Take good care of Daddy and Mary. You’re in charge now, big brother.” I don’t want to let go, so I hold on tighter; I’m still waiting and hoping for some sign, some indication that she will miss us as much as we’ll miss her.

And then she laughs and I release her. “Bye, Gogo,” I say, wiping my eyes with a corner of my shirt.

We all watch as she pushes the luggage carrier over to the check-in counter. I’m crying hard, wiping my tears with the back of my arm. Daddy puts one arm around me and Marry, holding Junior on the other. “We’ll wait until she’s in line for security,” he says.

When she’s done checking in, she turns back and looks at us through the glass doors. She lifts one hand and waves, and then she heads for the security line. We watch her go, thinking she might turn around one more time, but she doesn’t. She already seems so far away from us. Straight-A Martha, ever capable.

When it’s my time to leave, I doubt I’ll be as strong as Martha. But, honestly, who is? I cry all the way home. Mary tells me I’m a bigger baby than Henry is, but then from the backseat she grabs my hand and squeezes it, and I know she’s sad too.

Even though Marty isn’t a loud person, it feels quiet at home. Empty, somehow. What will it be like when I’m gone in two years? What will Daddy and Mary do then? I hate the thought of the two of them coming home to an empty, dark house with no me and no Martha, leaving a eleven year old to take care of so young Henry. Maybe I won’t go away far; maybe I’ll even live at home, at least for the first semester. I think that would be the right thing to do.


	8. Eight

_LATER THAT AFTERNOON LAFAYETTE CALLS_ and tells me to meet him at the mall; he wants my opinion on a jacket, and to get the full effect I have to see it in person. I’m proud he’s asking for my sartorial advice, and it would be good to get out of the house and not be sad anymore, but I’m nervous about driving to the mall alone.

I (or anyone, really) would consider myself a skittish driver. I ask him if he’ll just send me a picture instead, but Laf knows me too well. He says, “Nuh-uh. You get your ass down here, John Laurens. You’ll never get better at driving if you don’t just suck it up and do it.”

So that’s what I’m doing: I’m driving Martha’s car to the mall. I mean, I have my license and everything; I’m just not very confident. My dad has taken me for lessons numerous times, Marty too, and I’m basically fine with them in the car, but I get nervous when I drive alone. It’s the changing-lanes part that scares me. I don’t like taking my eyes away from what’s happening right in front of me, not for a second. Also I don’t like going too fast. But the worst thing is I have a tendency of getting lost.The only places I can get to with absolute certainty are school and the grocery store.

I’ve never had to know how to get to the mall, because Martha always drove us there. But now I have to do better, because I’m responsible for driving Mary around. Though truthfully, Mary is better with directions than I am; she knows how to get to loads of places. But I don’t want to have to hear her tell me how to get somewhere. I want to feel like the big brother; I want her to relax in the passenger seat, safe in the knowledge that John will get her where she needs to go, just like I did with Martha. Sure, I could just use a GPS, but I would feel silly putting in directions to go to the mall when I’ve been there a million times. It should come to me intuitively, easy, where I don’t even have to think about it. Instead I worry over every turn, second-guess every highway sign—is it north or is it south, do I turn right here or is it the next one? I’ve never had to pay attention.

But today, so far so good.

I’m listening to the radio, bopping along, even driving with just one hand on the wheel. I do this to feign confidence, because the more I fake it, the more it’s supposed to feel true.

Everything is going so well that I take the shortcut way instead of the highway way. I cut through the side neighborhood, and even as I’m doing it, I’m wondering if this was such a great idea.

After a couple of minutes things aren’t looking so familiar, and I realize I should have taken a left instead of a right. I push down the panic that’s rising in my chest and I try to backtrack. _You can do it, you can do it._

There’s a four-way stop sign. I don’t see anyone, so I zip ahead. I don’t even see the car on my right; I feel it before I see it. I scream my head off.

I taste copper in my mouth. Am I bleeding? Did I bite my tongue off? I touch it and it’s still there. My heart is racing; my whole body feels wet and clammy. I try to take deep breaths, but I can’t seem to get air.

My legs shake as I get out of the car. The other guy is already out, inspecting his car with his arms crossed. He’s old, older than my dad, and he has gray hair, and he’s wearing shorts with red lobsters on them. His car is fine; mine has a huge dent in the side. “Didn’t you see the stop sign?” he demands. “Were you texting on your phone?”

I shake my head; my throat is closing up. I just don’t want to cry. As long as I don’t cry.

He seems to sense this. The irritated furrow of his brow is loosening. “Well, my car looks fine,” he says reluctantly. “Are you all right?”

I nod again. “I’m so sorry,” I say.

“Kids need to be more careful,” the man says, as if I haven’t spoken.

The lump in my throat is getting bigger. “I’m very, very sorry, sir.”

He makes a grunty sound. “You should call someone to come get you,” the man says.“Do you want me to wait?”

“No, thank you.” What if he’s a serial killer or a child molester? I don’t want to be alone with a strange man. The man drives off.

As soon as he’s gone, it occurs to me that maybe I should have called the police while he was still here. Aren’t you always supposed to call the police when you’re in a car accident, no matter what? I’m pretty sure they told us that in driver’s ed. So that’s another mistake I made.

I sit down on the curb and stare at Martha’s car. I’ve only had it for two hours and I’ve already wrecked it. I rest my head in my lap and sit in a tight bundle. My neck is starting to ache. This is when the tears start. My dad is not going to be happy. Martha is not going to be happy. They’ll both probably agree that I have no business driving around town unsupervised, and maybe they’re right. Driving a car is a _lot_ of responsibility.

Maybe I’m not ready for it yet. Maybe I’ll never be ready. Maybe even when I’m old, my sibilings or my dad will have to drive me around, because that’s how useless I am.

Even Henry is probably better then me at this.

I pull out my phone and call Francis. When he answers, I say, “Francis, can you do me a f-f- favor?” and my voice comes out so wobbly I’m embarrassed.

Which of course he hears, because he’s Francis. He comes to attention immediately and says, “What’s wrong?”

“I just got into a car accident. I don’t even know where I am. Can you come get me?” Wobble wobble.

“Are you hurt?” he demands.

“No, I’m fine. I’m just—” If I say another word, I will cry.

“What street signs do you see? What stores?”

I crane my neck to look. “Falstone,” I say. I look for the closet mailbox. “I’m at 8109 Falstone Road.”

“I’m on my way. Do you want me to stay on the phone with you?” “No, that’s okay.” I hang up and start to cry.

•••

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting there crying when another car rolls up in front of me.

I look up, and it’s Alexander Hamilton's black Audi with the tinted windows. One of them rolls down. “John Laurens? Are you okay?”

I nod my head yes and make a motion like he should just go. He rolls the window back up, and I think he’s really going to drive off, but then he pulls over to the side and parks.

He climbs out and starts inspecting my car. “You really messed it up,” he says. “Did you get the other guy’s insurance info?”

“No, his car was fine.” Furtively, I wipe my cheeks with my arm. “It was my fault.”

“Do you have Triple A?” I nod. “So you called them already?”

“No. But someone’s coming.”

Alex sits down next to me. “How long have you been sitting here crying by yourself?”

I turn my head and wipe my face again. “I’m not crying.” Alexander Hamilton and I used to be friends, back before he was Hamilton, when he was Alex H.

There was a whole gang of us in middle school. The boys were Alexander Hamilton and Hercules Mulligan and John Ambrose. I used to hang with the girls, which were The Schuyler Sisters and me and sometimes Laf.

Growing up, Eliza, the middle Schuyler lived two streets away from me, and we're closer than I was with Peggy and Angelica. It’s funny how much of childhood is about proximity. Like who your best friend is is directly correlated to how close your houses are; who you sit next to in music is all about how close your names are in the alphabet. Such a game of chance. In eighth grade the Schuylers moved to a different neighborhood, and Eliza and I stayed friends a little while longer. She’d come back to the neighborhood to hang out, but something was different.

By high school Eliza had eclipsed me. She was still friends with the boys, but the girls’ crew was over. Angelica and I still talked until she moved last year for college and Peggy found friends in her grade, so there was always something just a little bit humiliating about it, like I was the leftover heels of bread with no one to make a dry sandwich.

We’re not friends anymore. Me and Eliza or me and Alex. Which is why it’s so weird to be sitting next to him on somebody’s curb like no time has passed.

His phone buzzes and he takes it out of his pocket. “I’ve gotta go.”

I sniffle. “Where are you headed?”

“To Liza’s.”

“You’d better get going then,” I say. “Eliza will be mad if you’re late.” Alexander makes a pfft sound, but he sure does get up fast. I wonder what it’s like to have that much power over a boy. I don’t think I’d want it; it’s a lot of responsibility to hold a person’s heart in your hands.

He’s getting into his car when, as an afterthought, he turns around and asks, “Want me to call Triple A for you?”

“No, that’s okay,” I say. “Thanks for stopping, though. That was really nice of you.” Alex grins. I remember that about Alex—how much he likes positive reinforcement. “Do you feel better now?” I nod. I do, actually. “Good,” he says. He has the look of a Handsome Boy from a different time and he knows it. He could be a dashing World War I soldier, handsome enough for a girl to wait years for him to come back from war, so handsome she could wait forever. He could be wearing a red letterman’s jacket, driving around in a Corvette with the top down, one arm on the steering wheel, on his way to pick up his girl for the sock hop. Alexander’s kind of wholesome good looks feel more like yesterday than today. There’s just something about him girls like.

He was my first kiss. It’s so strange to think of it now. It feels like forever ago, but really it was just four years.

•••

Francis shows up about a minute later, as I’m texting Laf that I’m not going to make it to the mall after all. I stand up. “It took you long enough!”

“You told me 8109. This is 8901!”

Confidently I say, “No, I definitely said 8901.”

“No, you definitely said 8109. And why weren’t you answering your phone?” Francis gets out of his car, and when he sees the side of my car, his jaw drops. “Holy crap. Did you call Triple A yet?”

“No. Can you?” Francis does, and then we sit in his car in the air-conditioning while we wait.

I almost get into the backseat, when I remember. Martha isn’t here anymore. I’ve ridden in his car so many times, and I don’t think I’ve ever once sat up front in the passenger seat. “Um... you know Martha’s going to kill you, right?” I whip my head around so fast my hair slaps me in the face.

“Marty’s not going to find out, so don’t you say a word!”

“When would I even talk to her? We’re broken up, remember?” I frown at him. “I hate when people do that—when you ask them to keep something a secret and instead of saying yes or no, they say, ‘Who would I tell?’ ”

“I didn’t say, ‘Who would I tell?’!”

“Just say yes or no and mean it. Don’t make it conditional.”

“I won’t tell Martha anything,” he says. “It’ll just be between you and me. I promise. All right?”

“All right,” I say. And then it gets quiet with neither of us saying anything; there’s just the sound of cool air coming out of the A/C vents. My stomach feels queasy thinking about how I’m going to tell my dad. Maybe I should break the news to him with tears in my eyes so he feels sorry for me. Or I could say something like, I have good news and bad news. The good news is, I’m fine, not a scratch on me. The bad news is, the car is wrecked. Maybe “wrecked” isn’t the right word.

I’m mulling over the right word choice in my head when Francis says, “So just because Martha and I broke up, you’re not going to talk to me anymore either?” Francis sounds jokingly bitter or bitterly joking, if there is such a combination.

I look over at him in surprise. “Don’t be dumb. Of course I’m still going to talk to you. Just not in public.” This is the role I play with him. The part of the pesky little brother. As if I am the same as Mary. As if we aren’t only a year apart.

Francus doesn’t crack a smile, he just looks glum, so I bump my forehead against his. “That was a joke, dummy!”

“Did she tell you she was going to do it? I mean, was it always her plan?” When I hesitate, he says, “Come on. I know she tells you everything.”

“Not really. Not this time anyway. Honestly, Francis. I didn’t know a thing about it. Promise.” I cross my heart.

Francis absorbs this. Chewing on his bottom lip he says, “Maybe she’ll change her mind. That’s possible, right?” I don’t know if it’s more heartless for me to say yes or no, because he’ll be hurt either way. Because while I’m 99.99999 percent sure that she will get back together with him, there’s that tiny chance she won’t, and I don’t want to get his hopes up. So I don’t say anything. He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “No, you’re right. When Martha makes up her mind, she doesn’t go back on it.” Please please please don’t cry.

I rest my head on his shoulder and say, “You never know, Fran.” Francis stares straight ahead. A squirrel is darting up the big oak tree in the yard. Up and down and back up again. We both watch.

“What time does she land?”

“Not for hours.”

“Is... is she coming home for Thanksgiving?”

“No. They don’t get off for Thanksgiving. It’s Scotland, Francis. They don’t celebrate American holidays, hello!” I’m teasing again, but my heart’s not in it.

“That’s right,” he says.

I say, “She’ll be home for Christmas, though,” and we both sigh. “Can I still hang out with you guys?” Francis asks me.

“Me and Mary?”

“Your dad, too.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” I assure him.

Francis looks relieved. “Good. I’d hate to lose you, too.” As soon as he says it, my heart does this pause, and I forget to breathe, and just for that one second I’m dizzy. And then, just as quickly as it came, the feeling, the strange flutter in my chest, is gone, and the tow truck arrives.

When we pull into my driveway, he says, “Do you want me to be there when you tell your dad?” I brighten up and then I remember how Martha said I’m in charge now. I’m pretty sure taking responsibility for one’s mistakes is part of being in charge.


	9. Nine

_DADDY ISN’T SO MAD AFTER_ all. I go through my whole good news–bad news spiel and he just sighs and says, “As long as you’re all right.”

The car needs a special part that has to be flown in from Indiana or Idaho, I can’t  
remember which. In the meantime I’ll have to share the car with Daddy and take the bus to school or ask Francis for rides, which was already my plan.

Martha calls later that night. Mary and I are watching TV and I scream for Daddy to come quick and bring Henry. We sit on the couch and pass the phone around and take turns talking to her.

“Martha, guess what happened today!” Mary shouts. Frantically, I shake my head at her. Don’t tell her about the car, I mouth. I give her warning eyes.

“John got into a...” Mary pauses tantalizingly. “A fight with Daddy. Yeah, he was mean to me and Daddy told him to be nice, so they had a fight.”

I grab the phone out of her hand. “We didn’t have a fight, Gogo. Mary’s just being annoying.”

“What did you guys have for dinner? Did you cook the chicken I defrosted last night?” Martha asks. Her voice sounds so far away.

I push the volume up on the phone. “Yes, but never mind about that. Are you settled into your room? Is it big? What’s your roommate like?”

“She’s nice. She’s from London and she has a really fancy accent. Her name is Penelope St. George-Dixon.”

“Gosh, even her name sounds fancy,” I say. “What about your room?”

“The room is about the same as that dorm we saw at UVA; it’s just older.”

“What time is it over there?”

“It’s almost midnight. We’re five hours ahead, remember?”

We’re five hours ahead, like she’s already considering Scotland her home, and she’s  
only been gone a day, not even! “We miss you already,” I tell her.

“Miss you too.”

After dinner I text Laf to see if she wants to come over, but he doesn’t text back.  
He’s probably out with one of the guys he hooks up with. Which is fine. I should catch up on my scrapbooking.

I was hoping to be done with Martha’s scrapbook before she left for college, but as anyone who’s ever scrapbooked knows, Rome wasn’t built in a day. You could spend a year or more working on one scrapbook.

I’ve got Motown girl-group music playing, and my supplies are laid out all around me in a semicircle. My heart hole punch, pages and pages of scrapbook paper, pictures I’ve cut out of magazines, glue gun, my tape dispenser with all my different colored washi tapes.

Souvenirs like the playbill from when we saw Wicked in New York, receipts, pictures. Ribbon, buttons, stickers, charms. A good scrapbook has texture. It’s thick and chunky and doesn’t close all the way.

I’m working on a Francis-and-Martha page. I don’t care what Martha says. They’re getting back together, I know it. And even if they aren’t, not right away, it’s not like Marty can just erase him from her history. He was such a big part of her senior year. And, like, her life. The only compromise I’m willing to make is I was saving my heart washi tape for this  
page, but I can just do a regular plaid tape instead. But then I put the plaid tape up  
against the pictures and the colors don’t look as good. So I go ahead and use the heart tape. And then, swaying to the music, I use my heart template to cut out a picture of the two of them at prom. Martha’s going to love this.

I’m carefully gluing a dried rose petal from Martha’s corsage when my dad raps on the door. “What are you up to tonight?” he asks me.

“This,” I say, gluing another petal. “If I keep at it, it’ll probably be done by Christmas.”

“Ah.” My dad doesn’t move. He just hovers there in the doorway, watching me work. “Well, I’m going to watch that new Ken Burns documentary in a bit, if you want to join me.”

“Maybe,” I say, just to be nice. It’ll be too much of a pain to bring all my supplies  
downstairs and get set up again. I’m in a good rhythm right now. “Why don’t you get it started without me?”

“All righty. I’ll leave you to it, then.” Daddy shuffles down the stairs.

It takes me most of the night, but I finish the Francis-and-Martha page, and it comes out really nice. Next is a siblings page. For this one I use flowered paper for the background, and I glue in a picture of the three of us from a long time ago. Mommy took it, while still pregnant. We’re  
standing in front of the oak tree in front of our house in our church clothes. We’re all  
wearing white dresses, and we have matching pink ribbons in our hair. The best thing about the picture is Martha and I are smiling sweetly and Mary is picking her nose. I smile to myself. Mary’s going to pitch a fit when she sees this page. I can’t wait.


	10. Ten

_MARTHA SAYS THAT JUNIOR YEAR_ is the most important year, the busiest year, a year so crucial that everything else in life hinges upon it. So I figure I should get in all the pleasure reading I can before school starts next week and junior year officially begins. I’m sitting on my front steps, reading a 1980s romantic British spy novel I got for seventy-five cents at the Friends of the Library sale.

I’m just getting to the good stuff (Cressida must seduce Nigel to gain access to the spy codes!) when Francis walks out of his house to get the mail. He sees me too; he lifts his hand like he’s just going to wave and not come over, but then he does.  
“Hey, nice onesie,” he says as he makes his way across the driveway.

It’s faded light blue with sunflowers and it ties around the neck. I got it from the  
vintage store, 75 percent off. And it’s not a onesie. “This is a sunsuit,” I tell him, going  
back to my book. I try to subtly hide the cover with my hand. The last thing I need is Francis giving me a hard time for reading a trashy book when I’m just trying to enjoy a relaxing afternoon.

I can feel him looking at me, his arms crossed, waiting. I look up. “What?”

“Wanna see a movie tonight at the Bess? There’s a Pixar movie playing. We can take Mary.”

“Sure, text me when you want to head over,” I say, turning the page of my book.

Nigel is unbuttoning Cressida’s blouse and she’s wondering when the sleeping pill she slipped in his Merlot will kick in, while simultaneously hoping it won’t kick in too soon, because Nigel is actually quite a good kisser.

Francis reaches down and tries to get a closer look at my book. I slap his hand away, but not before he reads out loud, “Cressida’s heart raced as Nigel moved his hand along her stockinged thigh.” Francis cracks up. “What the heck are you reading?”

My cheeks are burning. “Oh, be quiet.”

Chuckling, Francis backs away. “I’ll leave you to Cressida and Noel then.”

To his back, I call out, “For your information, it’s Nigel!”

•••

Mary’s over the moon about hanging out with Francis. When he asks the girl at the concession stand to layer the butter on the popcorn (bottom, middle, top), we both give an approving nod. Mary sits in the middle of us, and at the funny parts she laughs so hard she kicks her legs up in the air. She weighs so little that the seat keeps tipping up. Francis and I share smiles over her head.

Whenever Francis, Martha, and I went to the movies, Martha always sat in the middle too. It was so she could whisper to both of us. She never wanted me to feel left out because she had a boyfriend and I didn’t (and yes, she was the only one besides Laf who knew i was gay). She was so careful about this that it made me worry at first, that she sensed something from before. But she’s not someone to hold back or pretty up the truth. She’s just a really good big sister. The best.

There were times I felt left out anyway. Not in a romantic way, but a friend way. Francis and I had always been friends. But those times when he’d put his arm around Martha when we were in line for popcorn, or in the car when they’d talk softly to each other and I felt like the kid in the backseat who can’t hear what the adults are talking about, it made me feel a little bit invisible. They made me wish I had someone to whisper to in the backseat.

It’s strange to be the one in the front seat now. The view isn’t so different from the  
backseat. In fact, everything feels good and normal and the same, which is a comfort.

•••

Laf calls me later that night while I’m painting my toenails different-colored pinks, i guess it's sad no one gets to see it. It’s so loud in the background she has to yell. “Guess what!”

“What? I can barely hear you!” I’m doing my pinky toe a fruit-punch color called Hit Me with Your Best Shot.

“Hold up.” I can hear Laf moving rooms, because it gets quieter. “Can you hear me  
now?”

“Yes, much better.”

“Guess who broke up.” I’ve moved on to a mod pink color that looks like Wite-Out with a drop of red in it.

“Who?”

“Eliza and Hamilton! She dumped his ass.”

My eyes go huge. “Whoa! Why?”

“Apparently, she met some UVA guy at that hostessing job she had. I guarantee you she was cheating on Hamilton the whole summer.” A guy calls Laf’s name, and he says, “I gotta go. It’s my turn at bocce.” Laf hangs up without saying good-bye, which is his way.

I actually met Laf through Eliza. They’re cousins: their moms are sisters. Laf  
used to come over sometimes when we were little, but he and Liza didn’t get along even back then. They’d argue over whose Barbie had dibs on Ken, because there was only one Ken. I didn’t even try to fight for Ken, even though he was technically mine. Well, Martha’s, I had cars to play, but I never liked them because you can't do anything more than just slide it around. It was nice when we used the cars to take Barbie shopping.

At school some people don’t even know Laf and Eliza are cousins. They don’t  
look alike, like at all, but that's cool because Laf is actually french and was adopted.

Lafayette was pretty wild our freshman year. He went to every party, got drunk, hooked up with older boys. That year a junior guy from the lacrosse team told everyone that Lag had sex with him in the boys’ locker room, and it wasn’t even true.

Eliza made Alex threaten to kick his ass if he didn’t tell everybody the truth. I thought it was a really nice thing Eliza did for Laf, but he insisted that she had only done it so people wouldn’t think she was related to a slut. After that Laf stopped hanging out and pretty much did his own thing, with people from another school.

He still has that freshman-year reputation though. He acts like he doesn’t care, but I know he does, at least a little.

 


	11. Eleven

_ON SUNDAY, DADDY MAKES LASAGNA._ He does that thing where he puts black-bean salsa in it to jazz it up, and it sounds gross but it’s actually good and you don’t notice the beans. Francis comes over too, and he has three helpings, which Daddy loves. When Martha’s name comes up over dinner, I look over at Francis and see how stiff he gets, and I feel sorry for him. Mary must notice too, because she changes the subject over to dessert, which is a batch of peanut-butter brownies I baked earlier in the afternoon.

Since Daddy cooked, us kids have kitchen duty. He uses every pot in the kitchen when he makes lasagna, so it’s the worst cleanup, but worth it.

After, the three of us are relaxing in the TV room. It’s Sunday night, but there’s not  
that Sunday night feeling in the air, because tomorrow is Labor Day and we have one last day before school starts. Mary’s working on her dog collage, quelle surprise.

“What kind do you want most of all?” Francis asks her.

Mary answers back lightning fast. “An Akita.”

“Boy or girl?”

Again her answer is prompt. “Boy.”

“What’ll you name him?”

Mary hesitates, and I know why. I roll over and tickle Mary’s bare foot. “I know what  
you’ll name him,” I say in a singsong voice.

“Be quiet, John!” she screeches.

I have Francis’s full attention now. “Come on, tell us,” He begs.

I look at Mary and she is giving me evil glowy red eyes. “Never mind,” I say, feeling nervous all of a sudden. Mary might be the baby girl of the family, but she is not someone to trifle with.

Then Francis tugs on my ponytail and says, “Aw, come on, Jackie! Don’t leave us in suspense.”

I prop myself up on my elbows, and Mary tries to put her hand over my mouth.

Giggling, I say, “It’s after a boy she likes.”

“Shut up, John Laurens, shut up!”  
Mary kicks me, and in doing so she accidentally rips one of her dog pictures. She lets out a cry and drops to her knees and examines it. Her face is red with the effort of not crying. I feel like such a jerk. I sit up and try to give her an I’m sorry hug, but she twists away from me and kicks at my legs, so hard I yelp. I pick the picture up and try to tape it back, but before I can, Mary snatches it out of my hands and gives it to Francis. “Francis, fix it,” she says. “John Laurens ruined it.”

I know things are bad when she keeps calling me with the last name “Kitten, I was only teasing,” I say lamely. I wasn’t going to say the name of the boy. I would never ever have said it.

She ignores me, and Francis smooths the paper back out with a coaster, and with the concentration of a surgeon he tapes the two pieces together. He wipes his brow. “Phew. I think this one will make it.”

I clap, and I try to catch Mary’s eye, but she won’t look at me. I know I deserve it. The boy she has a crush on—it’s Francis.

Mary whisks her collage away from him. Stiffly she says, “I’m going upstairs to work on this. Good night, Fran.”

“Night, Mary,” Francis says.

Meekly, I say, “Good night, Mary,” but she’s already running up the stairs, and she  
doesn’t reply.

When we hear the sound of her bedroom door closing, Francis turns to me and says, “You’re in so much trouble.”

“I know,” I say. I’ve got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why did I do that?  
Even as I was doing it, I knew it was wrong. Martha would never have done that to me. That’s not how big brothers are supposed to treat their little sisters, especially not when I’m so much older than Mary.

“Who’s this kid she likes?”

“Just a boy from school.”

Francis sighs. “Is she really old enough to have crushes on boys? I feel like she’s too  
young for all that.”

“I had crushes on... boys when I was nine,” I tell him, whispering the word boys, but I’m still thinking about Mary. I wonder how I can make it so she isn’t mad at me anymore. Somehow I don’t think  
snickerdoodles will cut it this time.

“Who?” Francis asks me.

“Who what?” Maybe if I can somehow convince Daddy to buy her a puppy...

“Who was your first crush?”

“Hmm. My first real crush?” I had kindergarten and first- and second-grade crushes aplenty, but they don’t really count. “Like the first one that really mattered?”

“Sure.”

“Well... I guess Alexander Hamilton.”  
Francis practically gags. “Hamilton? Are you kidding me? He’s so obvious. I thought you’d be into someone more... I don’t know, subtle. Alexander Hamilton’s such a cliché. He’s like a cardboard cutout of a ‘cool super smart guy’ in a movie about high school.”

I shrug. “You asked.”

“Wow,” he says, shaking his head. “Just... wow.”

“He used to be different. I mean, he was still very Alex, but less so.” When Francis looks unconvinced, I say, “You’re straight, so you can’t understand what I’m talking about.”

“You’re right. I don’t understand!”

“Hey, you’re the one who had a crush on Ms. Rothschild!”

Francis turns red. “She was really pretty back then!”

“Uh-huh.” I give him a knowing look. “She was really ‘pretty.’ ” Our across-the-street  
neighbor Ms. Rothschild used to mow her lawn in terry-cloth short shorts and a string bikini top. The neighborhood boys would conveniently come and play in Francis’s yard on those days.

“Anyway, Ms. Rothschild wasn’t my first crush.”

“She wasn’t?”

“No. You were.”

It takes me a few seconds to process this. Even then, all I can manage is, “Huh?”

“When I first moved here, before I knew your true personality.” I kick him in the shin for that, and he yelps. “I was twelve and you were eleven. I let you ride my scooter, remember? That scooter was my pride and joy. I saved up for it for two birthdays. And I let you take it for a ride.”

“I thought you were just being generous.”

“You crashed it and you got a big scratch on the side,” he continues. “Remember  
that?”

“Yeah, I remember you cried.”

“I didn’t cry. I was justifiably upset. And that was the end of my little crush.” Francis gets up to go and we walk to the foyer. Before he opens the front door, he turns around and says to me, “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been around after... Margot dumped me.” A blush blooms pink across his face, underneath each sweetly freckled cheek. “You’re keeping me going, John Laurens.” looks at me and I feel it all, every memory, every moment we’ve ever shared. Then he gives me a quick, fierce hug and disappears into the night.

I’m standing there in the open door and the thought flies in my head, so quick, so  
unexpected, I can’t stop myself from thinking it: If you were mine, I would never have broken up with you, not in a million years.


	12. 12-13-14-15

_THIS IS HOW WE MET_ Francis. We were having a teddy-bear, tea-party picnic on the back lawn with real tea and muffins. It had to be in the backyard so no one would see. I was eleven, way too old for it, and Martha was thirteen, way, way too old. I got the idea in my head because I read about it in a book. Because of Mary I could pretend it was for her and persuade Martha into playing with us. Mommy had died the year before and ever since, Marty rarely said no to anything if it was for Mary.

We had everything spread out on Martha’s old baby blanket, which was blue and nubby with a squirrel print. I laid out a chipped tea set of Marty’s, mini muffins studded with blueberries and granules of sugar that I made Daddy buy at the grocery store, and a teddy bear for each of us. We were all wearing hats, because I insisted. “You have to wear a hat to a tea party,” I kept saying until Martha finally put hers on just so I’d stop.

She had on Mommy’s straw gardening hat, and Mary was wearing a tennis visor, and I’d fancied up an old fur hat of Grandma’s by pinning a few plastic flowers on top.  
I was pouring lukewarm tea out of the thermos and into cups when Francis climbed up on the fence and watched us.

The month before, from the upstairs playroom, we’d watched Francis’s family move in. We’d hoped for girls, but then we saw the movers unload a boy bike and we went back to playing. Francis sat up on the fence, not saying anything, and Martha was really stiff and embarrassed; her cheeks were red, but she kept her hat on. Mary was the one to call out to him. “Hello, boy,” she said.

“Hi,” he said. His hair was shaggy, and he kept shaking it out of his eyes. He was  
wearing a red T-shirt with a hole in the shoulder.

Martha asked him, “What’s your name?”

“Francis.”

“You should play with us, Francis,” Mary commanded.

So he did.

I didn’t know it then, how important this boy would become to me and to the people I love the most. But even if I had known, what could I have done differently? It was never  
going to be me and him. Even though.

•••

 _I THOUGHT I WAS OVER_ him.  
When I wrote my letter, when I said my good-byes, I meant it, I swear I did. It wasn’t even that hard, not really. Not when I thought about how much Martha liked him, how much she cared. How could I begrudge Martha a first love? Martha, who’d sacrificed so much for all of us. She always, always put Mary and me before herself. Letting go of Francis was my way of putting Martha first.

But now, sitting here alone in my living room, with my sister four thousand miles away and Francis next door, all I can think is, Francis Kinloch, I liked you first. By all rights, you were mine. And if it had been me, I’d have packed you in my suitcase and taken you with me, or, you know what, I would have stayed. I would have never left you. Not in a million years, not for anything.

Thinking these kinds of thoughts, feeling these kinds of feelings, it’s more than  
disloyal. I know that. It’s downright traitorous. It makes my soul feel dirty.

Martha’s been gone less than a week and look at me, how fast I cave. How fast I covet. I’m a betrayer of the worst kind, because I’m betraying my own sister, and there’s no greater betrayal than that. But what now? What am I supposed to do with all these feelings?

I suppose there’s only one thing I can do. I’ll write him another letter. A postscript with as many pages as it takes to X away whatever feelings I have left for him. I’ll put this whole thing to rest, once and for all.

I go to my room and I find my special writing pen, the one with the really smooth inky-black ink. I take out my heavy writing paper, and I begin to write.

_P.S. I still love you._   
_I still love you and that’s a really huge problem for me and it’s also a really huge surprise. I_   
_swear I didn’t know. All this time, I thought I was over it. How could I not be, when it’s_   
_Margot you love? It’s always been Martha..._

When I’m done, I put the letter in my diary instead of in my hat box. I have a feeling  
I’m not done-done yet, that there’s still more I need to say, I just haven’t thought of it yet.

•••

MARY’S STILL MAD AT ME. In the wake of the Francis revelation, I’d forgotten all about Mary. She ignores me all morning, and when I ask if she wants me to take her to the store for school supplies, she snaps, “With what car? You wrecked Martha’s.”

Ouch. “I was going to take Daddy’s when he comes back from Home Depot.” I back  
away from her, far enough away that she can’t lash out at me with a kick or a hit.  
“There’s no need to be nasty, Mary Eleanor.”

Mary practically growls, which is exactly the reaction I was hoping for. I hate when  
she goes mad and silent. But then she flounces away, and with her back to me she says, “I’m not speaking to you. You know what you did, so don’t bother trying to get back on my good side.” I follow her around, trying to provoke her into talking to me, but there’s really no use. I’ve been dismissed. So I give up and go back to my room and put on the Mermaids soundtrack. I’m organizing my first-week back-to-school outfits on my bed  
when I get a text from Francis. A little thrill runs up my spine to see his name on my phone, but I sternly remind myself of my vow. He is still Martha’s, not yours. It doesn’t matter that they’re broken up. He was hers first, which means he’s hers always.

Wanna go for a bike ride on that trail by the park?

Biking is a Martha-type activity. She loves going on trails and hikes and bikes. Not me.

Francis knows it too. I don’t even own my own bike anymore, and Martha’s is too big for me.

Mary’s is more my size, but it's still bad.

I write back that I can’t; I have to help my dad around the house. It’s not a total lie.  
My dad did ask me to help him repot some of his plants. And I said only if he was making me and if I had no say in the matter, then sure.

What does he need help with?

What to say? I have to be careful about my excuses; Francis can easily look out the  
window and see if I’m home or not. I text back a vague Just some random chores.  
Knowing Francis, he would show up with a shovel or a rake or whatever tool the chore entailed. And then he’d stay for dinner, because he always stays for dinner.

He said I was keeping him going. Me, John Laurens. I want to be that person for him, I want to be the one who keeps him going during this difficult time. I want to be his lighthouse keeper while we wait for Margot’s return. But it’s hard. Harder than I thought.

•••

 _I WAKE UP HAPPY BECAUSE_ it’s the first day of school. I’ve always loved the first day of school better than the last day of school. Firsts are best because they are beginnings.

While Daddy and Mary are upstairs washing up, I make whole-wheat pancakes with sliced bananas, Mary’s favorite. First-day-of-school breakfast was always a big thing with my mom, and then Margot took over, and now I guess it’s my turn. The pancakes are a little dense, not quite as light and fluffy as Martha’s. And the coffee... well, is coffee supposed to be light brown like cocoa? At least I know Henry fruits are in nice slices. When Daddy comes down, he says in a merry  
voice, “I smell coffee!” And then he drinks it and gives me a thumbs-up, but I notice he only has the one sip. I guess I’m a better baker than I am a cook.

“You look like a farm boy,” Mary says with a touch of meanness, and I know she’s still at least a little bit mad at me.

“Thank you,” I say. I’m wearing faded mom jeans and a scoop-neck floral shirt. It does look kind farm, but I think in a nice way. Martha left her brown lace-up combat boots, which I know they are feminine, but don't look like and whatever, right? Clothes don't have gender, and they’re my size, which I imagine was half size too big for her. I'm also wearing with pink bears socks, they’re really cute and show up through the space between the boots and the folded pants bar. “Will you braid my hair to the side?” I ask her.

“You don’t deserve a braid from me,” Mary says, licking her fork. “Besides, a braid  
would take it too far.”

Mary is only nine, but she has good fashion sense.

“Agreed,” my dad says, not looking up from his paper. I choke.

I put my plate in the sink and then put Mary’s bag lunch down next to her plate. It’s got all her favorite things: a Brie sandwich, barbecue chips, rainbow cookies, the good kind of apple juice.

“Have a great first day,” my dad chirps. He pops out his cheek for a kiss, and I bend  
down and give him one. I try to give Mary one too, but she turns her cheek.

“I got your favorite kind of apple juice and your favorite kind of Brie,” I tell her pleadingly. I really don’t want us to start the school year off on a bad note.

“Thank you,” she sniffs. Before she can stop me, I throw my arms around her and squeeze her so tight she yelps. Then I get my new floral back-to-school book bag and head out the front door. It’s a new day, a new year. I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one.

Francis is already in the car, and I run over and open the door and slide inside.

  
“You’re on time,” Francis says. He lifts his hand up for a high five, and when I slap it, our hands make a satisfying smack. “That was a good one,” he says.

“An eight at least,” I agree. We whizz past the pool, the sign for our neighborhood,  
then past the Wendy’s. “Has Mary forgiven you yet for the other night?”

“Not quite, but hopefully soon.”

“Nobody can hold a grudge like her,” He says, and I nod wholeheartedly. I can  
never stay mad for long, but Mary will nurse a grudge like her life depended on it.

“I made her a good first-day-of-school lunch, so I think that’ll help,” I say.

“You’re a good big brother.”

I pipe up with “Do you think i can be as good as Martha?”

And together we chorus, “Nobody’s as good as Martha.”


	13. Sixteen

_SCHOOL HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN AND_ found its own rhythm. The first couple of days of school are always throwaway days of handing out books and syllabuses and figuring out where you’re sitting and who you’re sitting with. Now is when school really begins.

For gym, Coach White set us loose outside to enjoy the warm sun while we still have it. Laf and I are walking the track field. He's is telling me about a party she went to over Labor Day weekend. “I almost got into a fight with this girl who kept saying I was wearing extensions. It’s not my fault my curls are fabulous.”

As we round the corner for our third lap, I catch Alexander Hamilton looking at me.

I thought I was imagining it at first, him staring in my direction, but this is the third time.

He’s playing ultimate Frisbee with some of the guys. When we pass them, Alex jogs over to us and says, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Laf and I look at each other. “Him or me?” he asks.

“John Laurens.”

Laf puts his arm around my shoulder protectively. “Go ahead. We’re listening.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “I want to talk to him in private.”

“Fine,” he snaps, and he flounces away. Over his shoulder he looks back at me with wide eyes, like What? I shrug back, like I have no idea!

In a low, quiet voice, Alex says, “Just so you know, I don’t have any STDs.”

What in the world? I stare at him, my mouth open. “I never said you had an STD!”

His voice is still low but actually furious. “I also don’t always take the last piece of  
pizza.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s what you said. In your letter. How I’m an egotistical guy who goes around  
giving girls STDs. Remember?”

“What letter? I never wrote you any letter!”  
Wait. Yes I did. I did write him a letter, about a million years ago. But that’s not the letter he’s talking about. It couldn’t be.

“Yes. You. Did. It was addressed to me, from you.”

Oh, God. No. No. This isn’t happening. This isn’t reality. I’m dreaming. I’m in my room and I’m dreaming and Alexander Hamilton is in my dream, glaring at me. I close my eyes. Am I dreaming? Is this real?

“John Laurens? Hey! Laurens?”

I open my eyes. I’m not dreaming, and this is real. This is a nightmare. The Alexander Hamilton is holding my letter in his hand. It’s my handwriting, my envelope, my everything. “How— how did you get that?”

“It came in the mail yesterday.” Alex sighs. Gruffly he says, “Listen, it’s no big deal; I  
just hope you’re not going around telling people—”

“It came in the mail? To your house?”

“Yeah.”

I feel faint. I actually feel faint. Please let me faint right now, because if I faint I will no longer be here, in this moment. It will be like in movies when a girl passes out from the horror of it all and the fighting happens while she is asleep and she wakes up in a hospital bed with a bruise or two, but she’s missed all the bad stuff. I wish that was my life instead of this.

I can feel myself start to sweat. Rapidly I say, “You should know that I wrote that  
letter a really long time ago.”

“Okay.”

“Like, years ago. Years and years ago. I don’t even remember what I said.” Up close, your face wasn’t so much handsome as beautiful. “Seriously, that letter’s from middle school. I don’t even know who would have sent it. Can I see it?”

I reach for the letter, trying to stay calm and not sound desperate. Just casual cool.

He hesitates and then grins his perfect Alex grin. “Nah, I want to keep it. I never got a letter like this before.”

I leap forward, and quick like a cat I snatch it out of his hand. He laughs and throws up his hands in surrender. “All right, fine, have it. Geez.”

“Thanks.” I start to back away from him. The paper is shaking in my hand.

“Wait.” He hesitates. “Listen, I didn’t mean to steal your first kiss or whatever. I mean, that wasn’t my intention—”

I laugh, a forced and fake laugh that sounds crazy even to my own ears. People turn around and look at us. “Apology accepted! Ancient history!” And then I bolt. I run faster than I’ve ever run. All the way to the boy’s locker room.

How did this even happen?

I sink to the floor. I’ve had the going-to-school-naked dream before. I’ve had the  
going-to-school-naked-forgot-to-study-for-an-exam-in-a-class-I-never-signed-up-for  
combo, the naked-exam-somebody-trying-to-kill-me combo. This is all that times infinity.  
And then, because there’s nothing left for me to do, I take the letter out of the  
envelope and I read it.

_Dear Alex H,_

_First of all I refuse to call you Hamilton. You think you’re so cool, going by your last name all of a sudden. Just so you know, Hamilton sounds like the name of an old man with a long white beard._

_Did you know that when you kissed me, I would come to love you? Sometimes I think yes._

_Definitely yes. You know why? Because you think EVERYONE loves you, Alex. That’s what I hate about you. Because everyone does love you. Including me. I did. Not anymore._

_Here are all your worst qualities:_

_You burp and you don’t say excuse me._

_You just assume everyone else will find it charming. And if they don’t, who cares, right? Wrong! You do care. You care a lot about what people think of you._

_You always take the last piece of pizza. You never ask if anyone else wants it. That’s rude._

_You’re so good at everything. Too good._

_You could’ve given other guys a chance to be good, but you never did._

_You kissed me for no reason. Even though I knew you liked Eliza, and you knew you liked Eliza, and Eliza knew you liked Eloza. But you still did it. Just because you could. I really want to know:_   
_Why would you do that to me? My first kiss was supposed to be something special. I’ve read about it, what it’s supposed to feel like—fireworks and lightning bolts and the sound of waves_   
_crashing in your ears. I didn’t have any of that. Thanks to you it was as unspecial as a kiss could be._

_The worst part of it is, that stupid nothing kiss is what made me start liking you. I never did before. I never even thought about you before. Eliza has always said that you are the best-looking boy in our grade, and I agreed, because sure, you are. But I still didn’t see the allure of you._   
_Plenty of people are good-looking. That doesn’t make them interesting or intriguing or cool._

_Maybe that’s why you kissed me. To do mind control on me, to make me see you that way. It worked. Your little trick worked. From then on, I saw you. Up close, your face wasn’t so much_   
_handsome as beautiful. How many beautiful boys have you ever seen? For me it was just one._

_You. I think it’s a lot to do with your lashes. You have really long lashes. Unfairly long._

_Even though you don’t deserve it, fine, I’ll go into all the things I like(d) about you:_

_One time in science, nobody wanted to be partners with Jeffrey Suttleman because he has BO, and you volunteered like it was no big deal. Suddenly everybody thought Jeffrey wasn’t so bad._

_You’re still in chorus, even though all the other boys take band and orchestra now. You even sing solos. And you dance, and you’re not embarrassed._

_You were the last boy to get tall. And now you’re not the tallest, but it’s like you earned it, and I think it's cute. Also,_   
_when you were short, no one even cared that you were very short—the girls still liked you and the boys still picked you first for basketball in gym._

_After you kissed me, I liked you for the rest of seventh grade and most of eighth. It hasn’t been easy, watching you with Eliza, holding hands and making out at the bus loop. You probably make her feel very special. Because that’s your talent, right? You’re good at making people feel_   
_special._

_Do you know what it’s like to like someone so much you can’t stand it and know that they’ll never feel the same way? Probably not. People like you don’t have to suffer through those kinds of things. It was easier after Eliza moved and we stopped being friends. At least then I didn’t_   
_have to hear about it._

_And now that the year is almost over, I know for sure that I am also over you. I’m immune to you now, Alex. I’m really proud to say that I’m the only boy between all the people in this school who has been_   
_immunized to the charms of Alexander Hamilton. All because I had a really bad dose of you in seventh grade and most of eighth. Now I never ever have to worry about catching you again._

_What a relief! I bet if I did ever kiss you again, I would definitely catch something, and it wouldn’t be love. It would be an STD!_

_John Laurens._


End file.
